Gary Sheynkman
07-16-2004, 07:00 PM
<img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/Hello10.jpg" /><br /><br /><b>Product Category:</b> Photo sharing application<br /><b>Manufacturer:</b> <a href="http://www.hello.com">Picasa, Inc</a><br /><b>Where to Buy:</b> Download at <a href="www.hello.com">www.hello.com</a><br /><b>Price:</b> $0 USD<br /><b>System Requirements:</b> Microsoft® Windows® 98/Me/2000/XP, 300MHz processor, 64 MB of RAM, 50 MB free disk space, Internet Explorer 5.0<br /><br /><b>Pros:</b><li>Intuitive interace;<br /><li>Tons of features;<br /><li>It’s free!<b>Cons:</b><ul><li>We are replacing family time by the fireplace with this?</ul><b>Summary:</b><br />As families grow and find better places to live and prosper, one often finds him or herself separating from family and friends. They could be on the other side of town, another state, a bordering country, or even a whole ocean away from you. Long distance phone calls and costly family get-togethers are great, but what of our dear friend, The Internet? VOIP is not yet developed although applications such as Skype are taking the initiative. Video feeds are problematic due to unstable speeds even with the fastest connections. Chat clients are the next step. As entertaining as they are though, chat clients don’t give you memories. Sharing photographs through AOL Instant Messenger and MSN Messenger is a pain at best. These applications are chat clients first, everything else second. The makers of Picasa have a solution though. Hello is a photo sharing client that lets you share photographs along with chatting about the latest family gossip.<br /><br />Read on for the full review!<!><br /><PAGEBREAK><br /> So what is it?<br /> Take a family photo sharing night by the fire, add shades of blue and silver to the picture, pretend everyone passes notes instead of talking, and stuff the whole scene into a big beige box (or a nice green Alienware one!). This is the essence of Hello. <br /> How do I get started?<br /> Registration is a breeze and if you are a first time user your will be greeted by a simple form that will require you to provide an ID and password for your account as well as a valid email. Post registration you can set Hello for auto-login and from that point in time be taken directly to the home screen every time Hello is activated. <br /><br /> So what can I do with it?<br /> Hello does two things very well. One of them is sharing photos the other is updating your blog that is provided by Google’s Blogger. The flowing will be a detailed explanation of each.<br /><br />Much like Picasa, Hello provides a very intuitive interface that allows you to share our cherished memories with ease. First you need someone to share your photographs with. This person can be either introduced to you by another user or can be invited to be your friend. Once that “friend” is added they will be displayed in your buddy list much like they would in MSN or AIM. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/Hello5.JPG"><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/Hello5x.jpg" /></a> <br /><i>Figure 1: You can invite friends (123KB)</i><br /><br /><a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/Hello4.JPG"><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/Hello4x.jpg" /></a> <br /><i>Figure 2: You can introduce friends (124KB)</i><br /><br /><a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/Hello3.JPG"><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/Hello3x.jpg" /></a> <br /><i>Figure 3:You can be introduced to friends (85.4)</i><br /><br />Once a conversation is initiated, the sharing process itself is quite simple. On the right-hand-side of the window is the chat board. It looks and works exactly like any other chat client right down to the emoticons. To the left is a big sharing window that serves as a filmstrip and a photo display. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/Hello7.JPG"><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/Hello7x.jpg" /></a> <br /><i>Figure 4: The interface is very simple, talk right look left (115KB)</i><br /><br />Now for the fun part; to show your friend or relative a photo all you have to do is click the “Send Pictures” button at the bottom of the chat window and you will be presented with options regarding your sharing method. Option 1 is to use Picasa to select the photos you want to share and option 2 is to use the good ol’ Explorer to find the desired photograph (Figure 2).<br /><br /><a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/Hello9.JPG"><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/Hello9x.jpg" /></a> <br /><i>Figure 5: If you already own Picasa, the prompt will change according to that notion. (120KB)</i><br /><br />After selecting a photograph you type in a caption in the chat window and it then appears on the screen of your friend or relative. Another method is to share your “recent photos”. These are photographs that you have already shared with either that person or with someone else. This is very convenient if you want to show your recent picture from a trip to place “x” to several friends. Obviously you can save the picture as well as the entire conversation for future reference as well as assign timestamps to every message in the chat itself.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/Hello8.JPG"><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/Hello8x.jpg" /></a> <br /><i>Figure 6: Hello lets you save all the images from your conversation (127KB)</i><br /><PAGEBREAK><br /> For those of us with Picasa, there will be a Hello folder created to store all those family pictures you received through Hello. Once the filmstrip begins to take shape and you start to venture through the photographs, you will notice a small window that shows what the other person is looking at now. You can then choose to have one person lead the way (much like having one person flip the pages in a photo album I suppose) while you are left to comment on the scenes. Another pleasant feature is that if you start talking about another photograph, Hello will make sure to note that. It would be quite embarrassing to say that “That thing is ugly” if you are looking at some horrid piece of art while your friend is still talking about that picture of his mom! <br /><br /><a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/Hello2.JPG"><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/Hello2x.jpg" /></a> <br /><i>Figure 7: As you can see, Hello will tell the other person which picture you are talking about (120KB) </i><br /><br />For those of us with slow connections Hello will resize the photograph that you are sent and give you the option to save the new smaller version or to acquire the original.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/Hello6.JPG"><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/Hello6x.jpg" /></a> <br /><i>Figure 8: Hello offers a wide range of option to serve those users with slower connections (127KB)</i><br /><br /> If your friend or relative forgot how you look and don’t believe the photos you can even do a live capture of an image with any webcam or camcorder connected to your computer. All you have to do is to select the device you would like to use to capture you image and then click on the “Freeze” button. It will then take that image and put it on your filmstrip if you are satisfied with the results. <br /><br />Very recently though, Hello shifted from being just a photo sharing app, to being a blog posting app as well. The ever popular Blogger which was developed by Goggle has taken the world by storm. The implementation is extremely easy. BloggerBot is a “friend” who you can initiate chats with. Every message that you type to it is posted on your Blogger account (whether it is on Blogger’s own site or your own domain makes no difference) and every photo that you share is posted as well. BloggerBot will “share” the a picture which has all the directions written on it. There is also an extra button that takes you directly to your Blogger account set up. There you can choose what size you want your images to be on your blog as well as borders, captions, archive sizes. If you have a Blogger blog there should be absolutely no reason why you don’t have Hello installed on you PC. <br /><br /> So what’s the catch?<br /> Call me old fashioned, but I just can’s see myself having happy “together moments” with my family while sitting by my monitor and reading their captions for photos from their recent family vacation…<br /><br /> Did I mention it is a breeze to use yet?<br /> As with Picasa this piece of software comes with amazing support. <a href="www.hello.com">www.hello.com</a> provides answers every singly question one might have. There is a direct link to the support page within the program. The font is nice and big and all directions are written out using short simple sentences. That my friends, is tech-support.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/Hello1.JPG"><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/Hello1x.jpg" /></a> <br /><i>Figure 9: Even Saddam is happy when he hears about Hello! (130KB)</i><br /><br /> So is this worth 6.36MB on my HD?<br /> Well of course it is! This application is the best free app since Napster! You can share your photos with people around the world. Your grandma can do it. It takes up no space. It eliminates going to the slow Blogger site to update you blog. Did I mention it’s FREE? Go download it right now!